Best. Cat. Ever.

Depending on who you ask, this is either Binks, Kitty, Thousand-Dollar Cat, Damn Cat, or Gray Cat. Most of the time to me he's Gray Cat, and he's the best cat ever.

Gray Cat is happy to spend his days alternating between pillow, suitcase, and shoulder attire for the kids. Well, perhaps not happy. Resigned might be a better term. He just goes limp and hangs there, bearing whatever indignity the kids have planned for him today (which has included, but is not limited to: trimmed whiskers, trimmed hair here and there, stuck in a box, a drawer, under the TV, a cupboard... the list goes on).

Gray Cat is deathly afraid of the vacuum. For reasons we don't know the cause of, he disappears in a hurry when someone turns it on. We've got one of those cyclonic things where you watch the dirt spin around, and he's never liked it.

So one day the kids decided that they were going to vacuum Gray Cat. Perhaps it was tough love, an attempt to cure him of his fears. They were pretty sly about it, and waited until only Grandma was watching them. Grandma tries but is no match.

Two of them held down Gray Cat while the third ran the vacuum. Gray Cat got so terrified that he crapped a pretty nice pile there on the carpet in the living room. At this point the kids knew they were in for it and let the cat go. Whoever was holding the vacuum (and I have my suspicions but no proof) took one look at the crap and one look at the implement in their hand, made a cognitive leap, and decided to get rid of the evidence. The vacuum worked faithfully and picked up the poo without a problem.

So when my wife got home there was only a beshitted vacuum (crap all over the see-through portion of the "Cyclonic Chamber") and three looks of blank denial. Fortunately I was not at home to witness the Vesuvian explosion that took place. I was, in fact, out of town. The cell call went something like this:

Me: "Hey dear, what's up?"

Her (very loud): "Kids... damn cat... vacuum... SHIT!"

Me: <hangs up quietly>

When I got home days later none of them would admit the deed, or having seen the cat that day, or that we even owned a cat. I did eventually extract what will likely be the only confession from our three-year old daughter : "I see the poop go 'roun and 'roun, daddy."